


i’m beginning to think i imagined you all along

by immortalcockroach (juggyjones)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Pining, Quarantine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23639080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juggyjones/pseuds/immortalcockroach
Summary: ‘Do you think psychics are essential workers? Exorcists?’‘Probably not. What’s he like?’Clarke thought about the apparition. ‘Quite cute for a dead guy.’— in which clarke is stuck in quarantine with a ghost who haunts her apartment.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 33
Kudos: 198





	i’m beginning to think i imagined you all along

**Author's Note:**

> _or, alternatively, with a lot of letters, teas, and paranormal activity, clarke and bellamy fall in love._
> 
> i do not think the current world situation is cute/romantic/poetic but let me at least find some silver lining while i am stranded abroad and alone
> 
> inspired by me facetiming my friend and telling her about odd things happening around my apartment, and her reaction being 'hey, at least you're not alone during the quarantine!' 
> 
> title from _cornerstone_ by arctic monkeys.

‘Welcome to my crib,’ Clarke says. ‘It’s haunted.’

When Clarke moved into the apartment at twenty-one, fresh out of college and ready to take on the world, it was a beautiful place she could call home. Its only bedroom was spacious in a way that allowed freedom of the physical and mental realms, one king-sized bed placed in the very middle of it. There was a big window with a broad windowsill, looking out into the streets of Polis, and on the other side was a decently-sized desk and an old wooden chair. Behind the wall was the bathroom, a modest thing with a bathtub instead of a shower, a toilet, and a sink.

Outside the bedroom was the living room, immediately, couches and sofas from different eras scattered over it. It was the biggest room in the apartment, big enough so that all her friends easily fit – and Clarke had a lot of those. The living room was separated from the dining room/kitchen by a mere faux bar, and the table was not for more than five people, even though they all squeezed together and it became for more. Another bathroom was almost at the entrance, connected by the only closed-off area barely big enough to call a hallway.

It was big and small at the same time, but it was Clarke’s home.

That was two years ago. Since moving in, Clarke found herself spending more and more time away from it. She had a job at the art gallery, curating art and teaching it; another one at a school, where she also taught art; and another one at a nursing home, where she read to people who didn’t have anyone else to do it.

She had friends, too – a group that grew as time went by, enlarging rather than unifying, and Clarke began to feel as if she were collecting these people to place them into her life. They all needed one another like trees need the sun, and it was lovely.

Most of her time was spent away from the apartment. If she was in it, she was rarely alone, unless it was for sleeping. Even then, sometimes, she wasn’t.

Clarke started noticing odd things mere days after moving in, but attributed them to her restlessness. A chair would find itself in her way to the kitchen sink; a couch would have an indent as if someone else had sat in it; a toilet seat would be up; her bed would be unmade even if she could’ve sworn she’d made it earlier that morning. Sometimes herbs and spices would be around the kitchen, as if she were a chaos when cooking.

So she invited Raven over one day, and said to her, ‘My apartment is haunted.’

It was a joke. She showed her the toilet seat. Raven noticed her cup on the coffee table a few inches further from the edge, where she thought she’d put it.

‘Your apartment is haunted,’ agreed Raven, and they laughed.

Because it was a joke. There was no such things as ghosts.

Time went by, and more of their friends were let in on the joke. At least once any of them came over, they would point out a thing that shouldn’t make sense, yet it somehow did, and it made them all feel a little funny, so they made it a game. Who’d spot most oddities. Who’d spot the weirdest one. Who’d spot something actually _moving_.

No one did the latter. That was why they never truly believed in the haunting, only made it a joke, explaining the explainable as if it wasn’t.

‘Are you going to do something about your apartment?’ asked Jasper, one of the times it was just him and Monty at hers.

‘What do you mean?’

Monty bit into an apple. ‘You could sell it. Haunted apartments sell well.’

Clarke frowned. ‘I thought it was the opposite.’

‘Don’t let capitalism fool you,’ Jasper said, ‘people love that stuff.’

‘You barely spend time in it, anyway,’ agreed Monty.

Clarke guessed it was true. Not long since she got all her jobs, real and volunteering, Clarke took it upon herself to learn the secrets of the world. Sometimes that would mean spending more time at a job, sometimes she would learn the intricacies of her friends and their connections. Sometimes, she would just be holed up in a library, learning about all the things her heart yearned for.

A tiny voice in her head would sometimes ask her if she’s simply avoiding her apartment. There was a difference between coming to visit your friend who lives in a haunted apartment, and being the friend that lives in the haunted apartment.

Clarke didn’t like how that thought make her feel, so she ignored it.

‘I love this place,’ she told the two. ‘I couldn’t ever dream of selling it.’

Jasper fired finger guns at her. ‘Then have fun with your ghost.’

That was the end of the discussion.

Months later, Clarke’s habits hadn’t changed. She still only ate and slept in the apartment. There was never a moment where she didn’t feel perfectly comfortable in her own home, but she never had the desire to spend more time in it that she has to. Life always seemed to take her out, away from it, and she didn’t mind.

Until.

Until a pandemic put a stop on everything and life locked her inside it.

Clarke, like many people, was following the news leading up to the announcement. Her mother’s phone call several days prior had warned her about the severity of the situation from a doctor’s point of view, and Clarke gradually made sure she had enough food and supplies to last three weeks, and a little longer – just in case.

Abby phoned minutes after Clarke woke up. ‘Make sure you’re washing your hands as often as possible, if you must leave the house.’

‘I won’t, Mom. I have enough—’

‘Sanitise everything,’ she continued, as if Clarke hadn’t spoken. ‘Clean your whole apartment and make sure you get to the smallest dust particle. Tell your friends to follow the rules. Freeze enough food. If you need anything, I can drop it off.’

‘I’ll be okay, Mom.’

On the other end, Abby sighed, and finally took a breath. ‘I’m glad you didn’t choose to go into medicine. You’d be on the front lines.’

Clarke wondered if she should be honest regarding thinking about volunteering. Maybe it wouldn’t be the best idea. Abby was upset enough with the whole situation without her adding more things to be upset about.

‘Stay safe,’ she told Abby. ‘I know you have Marcus, but I can always help out in any way you need.’

‘Just,’ Abby began, and paused, as if rethinking whatever it was she was going to say. Another sigh came. ‘Be responsible.’

That settled it. Abby hung up a few minutes later, after she made sure Clarke knew all the rules and made her promise at least a dozen times that she will call if she even feels the slightest symptom. Clarke made herself tea afterwards, swirling a spoon inside the cup while texting the group chat with all her friends in it.

Needless to say, it was a little hectic.

Murphy and Miller, for one, were furious at the situation. Harper was trying to reason with them, while Lincoln provided some medical facts. Raven reacted to everything. Jasper sent memes. Monty told them to come get their supply of moonshine. Luna was raging at the cancellation of sports. Wells was being asked a bajillion questions seeing as his dad was a government official. As it was the bigger group chat, with some people who didn’t hang out with them on the regular, more of them chipped in with their own thoughts. Monroe, Niylah, Zeke all picked a side. Maya was trying to calm everyone. Fox was sending more memes.

It was chaos.

Clarke laughed. It was a lot, and while some of them were freaking out, it still reminded her that the Earth didn’t stop turning. They were going to get through all of it.

If she was paying more attention to her surroundings, she would’ve seen her tea was being stirred, still, even though both her hands were busy typing away her own response.

Later, she did go and get her share of moonshine from Monty, who greeted her in a hazmat suit, the same one he bought for Halloween a few years back.

‘You look ridiculous,’ Clarke told him.

‘Healthy,’ Monty retorted. The two bottles filled with a total of five gallons of moonshine were in a box, ready for taking. ‘Should last you three weeks.’

‘Thanks, Monty. Don’t let Jasper kill you. And don’t kill him.’

‘No promises.’

Clarke shook her head, sighing as she picked up the box. ‘I don’t want to need to find other suppliers.’

Monty grinned. ‘Fine. Just for you, I’ll keep us alive.’

‘Pinky promise?’

‘Pinky promise.’

Both of them it wasn’t a promise they just wouldn’t kill each other. Monty was in the suit for a joke, but he was scared, and cautious. They all were. It wasn’t the time to take things lightly, and Clarke was glad all her friends were sane, even if complaining about the situation.

There was a ding. Monty looked at his phone, that he plucked out of somewhere. ‘Get going, Griffin. Murphy’s going to be here any second.’

Clarke got going. They didn’t hug goodbye, as they usually would, and it was a little somber. She didn’t let herself think about any possibility other than the massive party she was going to throw once all of this was over.

Just as she entered her car, Murphy drove into a parking spot right next to her. Flipped her the bird, and grinned.

‘I’m expecting a big party at the haunted apartment when we’re no longer slaves to a virus.’

‘You read my thoughts,’ Clarke said, through a closed window. ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Murphy.’

Murphy’s grin grew wider. Behind him, Monty waited, door wide open. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it, Griffin.’

They didn’t say a proper goodbye, either. Murphy didn’t do goodbyes.

Clarke drove back to her apartment, taking a quick stop at a shop and getting some ice-cream, because somehow she managed to forget about that. She even got some DVDs, too, in case of emergency – emergency being Netflix not working.

There was music playing when she opened the door to her apartment. She couldn’t remember if she left her laptop on, connected to the surround system, but it wouldn’t be the first time. It was a Lord Huron song, so she just let it play as she put away the groceries in the kitchen, then sorted the DVDs on a shelf next to the TV.

For the next part of the day, Clarke didn’t do much. She watched a couple of Bob Ross videos for ideas on what to do with her classes. Her living room was big enough for an easel and a canvas, so she figured she’d do something similar to what he did. It wasn’t how she usually did it, but the kids loved Bob Ross, and this was a great situation to give something like this a try.

As songs played on, Clarke realised it was one of her calming playlists. She hadn’t played those in a while.

Raven facetimed her, just as she was having dinner with a random Netflix romantic comedy.

‘I can’t believe you’re stuck with Casper and all I’ve got is Luna and Niylah,’ she complained, even though both girls she named were in the same room.

Clarke laughed. ‘Murphy asked me to throw a party once we have our freedom again.’

‘Thank god,’ Luna chimed in.

‘We’re definitely going to need to get wasted big time,’ agreed Raven. She munched on a sandwich. ‘We’re also going to need to facetime, all of us.’

‘There’s some apps for that.’ Luna came and sat on the couch next to Raven, who shifted the phone on the couch’s armrest so both of them would be in the shot. ‘I’ll look it up.’

Luna looked up the apps, alerted the group chat, Raven and Clarke chatted for a bit and they all went their separate ways. Lincoln texted her about Abby’s number, as she worked in a different hospital and he, as a nurse, liked to know as much as possible.

Monty made everyone take a video of themselves drinking his newest batch of moonshine and rate it. Clarke gave it a 7/10 – not bitter enough.

Night was breezy. Clarke fell asleep on the couch, her Netflix still turned on to whatever documentary she was watching. When she woke, there was a blanket over her and the living room heating hadn’t turned off during the night. She must’ve gotten up at some point, half-asleep, and fixed those things.

For the most part, Clarke had a very rational mind. It was quick to explain the unexplainable.

The day went on, little things like that happening, and Clarke, as always, attributed it to how twitchy and out of it she would get under stress. She facetimed. She wrote emails. She filmed a few videos for the classes. She called to check up on the elderly she would usually be reading to during this time.

It was a lazy day. The one after it was the same.

The days started blending together and Clarke couldn’t even tell when it started happening, until Abby called and said she got worried because Clarke didn’t call her yesterday, even though she was convinced she did.

‘You called me two days ago,’ Abby stated.

Clarke kept denying until her recent calls told her the truth. ‘Shit, sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to. How are you holding up?’

From then on, Clarke decided to keep a diary of everything she did each day. Conveniently, when she walked into her room to scout for an empty notebook, there was one lying just at the edge of her desk, in plain sight.

A little over a week in, Clarke started thinking that maybe there was some truth in the group’s biggest inside joke, and in her welcome of new people into the apartment.

_Welcome to my crib._ _It’s haunted._

Things started being a little less self-explanatory, like a cup of tea that she didn’t even remember making, or Netflix being open on her favourite film when she started feeling a little lonely in the bath. The heating never went down as it usually did, and if she slept on the couch, she always woke up with a blanket. Sometimes there would be a book on the coffee table that she didn’t remember putting there.

It was starting to be a little more than just her restlessness, or whatever she attributed it to.

She called Raven.

‘I think my apartment is haunted.’

Raven laughed.

‘I’m being serious.’

Someone handed Raven a cup of tea. For some reason, Raven seemed to believe tea will be the remedy to her blocked nose, courtesy of spring allergies. She sipped it and looked at Clarke with a wrinkle between her brows, as if trying to figure out if Clarke was maybe joking, after all.

‘ _Raven.’_

‘All right,’ she said, voice serious at last. ‘What’s happening?’

Clarke told her. It was an extensive list, one that she ended up reading from her journal, and it was all the little things she noticed. None of them were dangerous, as Raven pointed out, or anything worse than mildly inconvenient for Clarke.

‘Honestly, it’s like the ghost is taking care of you.’

Clarke would laugh, if the absurdity of the statement somehow didn’t seem plausible. ‘You mean, a domesticated ghost?’

‘Yeah. It might be, like, an old granny that died and now takes care of every resident.’

The thought passed through Clarke’s mind. In the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a flicker of movement, but the room was empty when she looked. She turned her attention to the phone, propped up against a flower vase.

‘I don’t want a dead old granny taking care of me.’

‘Hey, at least you’re not alone.’

‘Screw you, Raven,’ Clarke said, and laughed.

They decided she would keep an eye on the unusual activities and continue writing them down. Luna overheard, at some point, and told them they should try establishing contact with the presence. Niylah popped up from somewhere and told Clarke to go talk to it through a mirror. Raven laughed at the suggestions and called them crazy witches.

They weren’t really offended.

‘Seriously, Clarke,’ Niylah said. ‘Luna was right. Establish contact. Maybe it’ll be easier to get rid of it.’

‘Somehow, the idea of establishing contact with something that isn’t human isn’t something I thought I would be doing in quarantine.’

‘Hey,’ Raven began, ‘some people cut their hair, some people talk to ghosts that haunt their apartments.’

‘Fine,’ Clarke said. ‘I’ll think about it.’

When they hung up, she sat on the couch, staring at the empty room around her. It was weird to think she was even considering something so absurd as talking to whatever could be haunting her apartment. Raven’s theory was that it simply made sure Clarke was okay, in the smallest ways it could. Neither Luna nor Niylah seemed to think it was meaning harm, either.

It was a _joke_. Her apartment wasn’t supposed to be haunted _for real_.

When she texted the group chat, everyone seemed to think it was the perfect reason to have the PQP—peequpay—post-quarantine-party—at hers. Jasper and Murphy were loving it the most.

Now, she just sat on the couch, stared into nothing, and wondered when the fuck her life became like this.

Clarke sighed.

Then she said, ‘Hey.’

Nothing.

She sighed again. It was stupid and she couldn’t believe she was actually doing this. It didn’t feel real – maybe that was why she was semi-okay with it.

‘Can you hear me?’ she asked. No reply came, but Clarke was bored, so she continued, ‘I don’t know how this works. I hope I’m not sounding dumb. I don’t know why you’re here, in my apartment. It’s a little bit weird.’

There was nothing, again, so she just gave up. When Raven asks tomorrow if she spoke to it, Clarke will say she tried. It was true. She didn’t try really hard, but if the ghost was here, able to communicate, then it would’ve replied, right?

It’s not like she understood ghosts. In fact, she never had any interest in the paranormal aside from watching an occasional horror movie.

Clarke went to sleep. When she woke up, her mind glazed over the fact that the kettle had been boiled and bread put away neatly after she’d left it outside the night before. The cushions had been put back into place, as well, after she’d fallen asleep on the couch and dragged herself into her bedroom a little later. The living room heating was on, even though it should have turned off during the night, because it’s shitty heating.

Her mind didn’t register any of that as she scrolled her Instagram feed. She went to the bathroom, came back, and sat on the couch, when something seemed off.

She was on the couch that was small enough to be called an armchair, almost, and it felt a little odd. A little comfortable, the way it feels after her friends had just left and she sinks into it when someone else had been sitting in it.

Her eyes felt a little askew, as if there was something off with what she was looking at. It seemed as if it was shifted, a little, to the left – as if someone had moved the armchair.

Clarke’s heart stopped beating.

She caught sight of a pair of reading glasses next to the DVDs, and tried recalling if they were there when she was putting the DVDS on the shelf. She tried recalling if any of her friends ever wore glasses to hers.

Clarke facetimed Raven.

‘I think my ghost wears reading glasses.’

Raven burst out laughing. ‘Seriously?’

Instead of a reply, she walked over to the shelf and turned to back camera so Raven could see the glasses. ‘I don’t know anyone who wears glasses like these.’

‘Maybe someone just forgot them, ages ago.’

‘I was putting these DVDs on the shelf few days ago. They weren’t here.’

‘Shit,’ Raven said, and Clarke could almost hear the realisation sinking in. ‘Your apartment is haunted.’

The next part of the conversation consists mostly of them looking up online resources to thinking your apartment might be haunted. Luna and Niylah joined them at some point, helping out by doing the research on their phones. Niylah apparently had New Age friends who she texted for some information, prompting Clarke for specifics every now and then. _Do you feel cold spots?_ No. _Do you feel like sometimes you do things you are not in control of?_ No. _Do you hear noises that you can’t explain?_ Yes. _Do you feel a presence?_

This one made Clarke think. She looked around; the place was empty, as far as she could tell, and as far as she knew, but that wasn’t what Niylah’s friends were asking. She shuddered at the thought.

At the realisation, too.

She said, ‘Yes.’ Then she added, ‘But it might be because at this point, I’m _expecting_ there to be a ghost.’

‘Confirmation bias,’ Raven said.

Niylah kept asking her friends’ questions. Luna brought more cups of tea. Raven didn’t stop making snarky and smartass comments.

The conversation concluded on an experimental note. Raven suggested, jokingly, she should try writing to the ghost. Niylah agreed, not so jokingly, and said that it might be the ghost’s preferred method of communication. Communication was the key, her friends had said, and Niylah seemed to think the glasses could have been a sign. Luna just told Clarke to go with her gut. Raven told her to film it.

Once they had hung up, Clarke got up and made herself a cup of tea. She wasn’t usually big on tea, but lately she had been craving it, and Niylah said it was because her body could tell the energies of the place had been upset, and the energies of her body were seeking an internal equilibrium to keep the change from affecting her.

_Tea_ equals herbs. _Herbs_ equal energies.

Whatever. Clarke was just willing to do whatever so she wouldn’t feel like things are getting really, really weird, and if drinking chamomille tea was what it took, she was okay with it.

Sitting in the dining area of the living room, Clarke had a clear sight of the reading glasses. They hadn’t moved, at all. Part of her wondered if maybe they had been there all along, and she simply hadn’t paid attention to them until she started paying attention to _everything_.

With her cup of tea, Clarke walked into her room, looking for a particular something. The journal, she had realised at some point during the conversation with the girls, was a bit of an odd thing in her collection. She placed the mug on the desk and picked up the leather-bound notebook, letting it fall open on her palms. It was burgundy on the outside, but the paper inside it was white, if only the slightest tinge of yellow to it. It was rough under her fingertips, familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

The pages she’d filled out with her tiny, neat handwriting felt like her own. The others felt like a story she was yet to discover.

Having it open felt like entering someone’s private space, yet it didn’t feel particularly _wrong_ , and Clarke liked to pride herself on her sense of right and wrong.

She couldn’t remember acquiring it. Her collection of notebooks had grown in recent years; some were bought and others were gifted, but this one felt _found_. As if it belonged right here, on this desk, in Clarke’s hands.

She tore a page out of it.

With her cup of tea, she sat on the couch, right next to the armchair-couch. Her fingers found a pen she couldn’t remember acquiring, either, and words began writing themselves over the torn-out page before she had time to think about them.

_Hey,_ she wrote. _My name is Clarke. Although, if you’re in this apartment, then you probably know that already._

_I tried talking to you, yesterday. I don’t know if you heard or not. I’m not sure how this is supposed to work. If you’re the one who has been putting up the heating, covering my in blankets, turning on my favourite songs and movies when I would feel down, thank you. ~~If you’re not then~~_

_I would like to know if you really are here. I’m not sure how this works, but using paper from the journal felt right, so maybe that means something._

_I don’t know what else to say. I hope this works._

_— Clarke_

She thought it would be a good idea to thank the ghost. Luna said to trust her intuition, and she was doing exactly that. Niylah said that’s how psychics could read tarot, and choose the card that speaks to them. Her friends said Clarke shouldn’t ignore her feelings.

Now, she placed the paper on the armchair-couch, alongside the pen that certainly wasn’t hers, and turned on Netflix. Things were getting a little insane, a little out of hand, but when she said this to the group chat, Murphy replied that her constant updates on the ghost are keeping them from having to face the reality.

_Silver lining_ , Monty texted, and they all agreed.

Clarke spent some more time on the couch, until the sun had set and she made herself some dinner. It had been hours since she wrote the letter, or the note, or whatever, and things were all the same. There was no sign of anyone being in the apartment but her. She didn’t really feel the presence, either, and a part of her felt very, extraordinarily foolish for thinking the place might be haunted.

She laughed at herself, almost choking on her sandwich. It was the quarantine getting to her mind, playing on the joke that had been a running gag for way too long.

There was no ghost in her apartment.

That was the thought she went to sleep with, her brain rationalising everything, and it was the thought that was shattered in the morning when she walked into the living room and saw the paper on the armchair-couch seemed a little different.

She approached it, with an empty stomach (not the smartest idea), and realised that was because there was more writing on it, right below hers.

Clarke plopped into the couch beside it. Then she went to grab a glass of water. Then she went to take a shower. Do her weekly skincare routine. Make oatmeal with a bunch of ingredients. A cup of coffee. More chamomille tea.

It was noon when she sat back on the couch and took the paper in her hands.

_Hi, CLARKE_ , it read. The handwriting was big and sloppy and her name was written in all caps. Even though the letter itself was shorter than hers, it took up a bigger portion of the page.

_I was pleasantly surprised to find your letter. My name is BELLAMY, and I hope my presence hasn’t been scary/disturbing to you. I assume you must have a lot of questions. Sadly, I don’t think I have many answers._

_You were correct; writing on a page from the journal feels right. I am glad we have finally established a form of communication._

_—_ _BELLAMY_

Clarke had some more tea. Then she facetimed Murphy.

‘What’s up, Griffin?’

‘There is a ghost in my apartment,’ said Clarke, ‘and its name is Bellamy.’

Murphy laughed. Then stopped laughing. Then his face fell into an expression Clarke couldn’t quite recognize over the small screen of her phone as he realised she was not, in fact, joking.

It must’ve been the grave seriousness of her voice that gave it away.

‘Fuck.’

In the next few minutes, Clarke gave him a detailed rundown of what had been happening. She told him about Raven, Luna, and Niylah and her friends. The journal sounded like a particularly interesting part of the story. Murphy said they’d talk about that later – for now, he was simply interested in the particular events, rather than feelings.

Murphy was an entirely different kind of advisor in comparison to the triad of girls. Clarke was immensely grateful.

‘It must have history,’ he said, eventually, looking through the notes he’d taken although Clarke was fairly certain he had memorised everything. Murphy was a lot more clever than he let people in on. ‘There must be a reason why it’s in that particular place, at this particular time, and why you are able to communicate only now.’

‘Should I ask it?’

At some point during the conversation, Murphy looked up the name to figure out whether _Bellamy_ was a male or female name, yet they learned it was hardly a name at all.

Murphy shook his head. ‘Not now, at least. Ask Niylah for tips on communication. I can tell you to keep recording things that are odd, but also try figuring out why the ghost might’ve done them. So far, it seems to be helping out.’

‘Mostly. Sometimes things are a little inconvenient. You’ve seen it.’

‘Not to that extent.’ Murphy paused, flipping through the papers (filled with sketches and doodles, not just notes). He looked at Clarke, a little exasperated. ‘At first, I thought it might be unaware of being a ghost, but I don’t think that’s the case. But I don’t think it’s whatever we expect ghosts to be like.’

‘What do you mean?’

It was odd to hear Murphy being serious; it was even odder to realise that Murphy somehow seemed to understand the situation better than she thought he would.

Still, there was a reason why her instinct told her to reach out to him first, not Raven.

Murphy ran a hand through his already messy hair—an unusual sight for Clarke—and sighed. ‘There’s no rules on ghosts that I could find. Every lore has a different approach to it. Meaning, there might be no way to understand its existence unless you ask it.’

‘So I _should_ ask it?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Jesus, Murphy,’ Clarke said. ‘You’re making no sense.’

‘Look, I think you need to notice the patterns. With that, you’ll know its intention. I’ll try looking up if anyone named Bellamy had died recently. I think it’s also a good idea to look into the history of your building. Your job is to be more attentive to what’s happening around you and write down absolutely _everything_. Even things that feel right. Your instincts.’

Clarke quirked an eyebrow at him. ‘Are you implying I might be connected to the ghost?’

‘I don’t know, Clarke, maybe! There must be a reason why _now_ ,’ he said, and they both understood it.

Clarke had lived in this apartment for two years now, but it never occurred to her that she might _really_ have a ghost. She had noticed all the little things before, but she always attributed them to something or someone else. Her internal instinct to stay out of the apartment must’ve been there for a reason.

Something had changed. Murphy thought figuring this out is the key to understanding at least a little bit of the ghost.

He gave her some more advice, and some promises on doing the research for her. He gave her tasks, too, ones that were a more scientific approach to the situation than her other friends’. Clarke felt more comfortable with this.

When she alerted Raven, the other two girls were already with her, too. They were all a little shaken, but adamant that Clarke must pursue written communication. Niylah promised to send her recipes for teas that would help out, while keeping her protected. Luna gave her words of encouragement. Raven lightened the mood.

Clarke ended up writing another letter. It was made up of questions, mostly, ones that Murphy ended up recommending. His research was going slowly, so his idea was to get some information from the ghost itself. Niylah agreed with this, when she sent her tea recipes for increasing intuition, clairvoyance, but also for healing energy. Clarke had been feeling more tired recently.

She woke to a strange feeling that was neither relief nor disappointment, but definitely something along those lines.

The apartment felt less empty. There was no one in it apart from her, nothing new had happened, yet Clarke felt as if she could feel someone else’s presence.

It was the opposite of entering a place where no one had been for a long time. It was the opposite of abandoned buildings. It was the feeling of life, if distanced, the warmth you get when you enter a friend’s home for the first time.

The letter was disappointing and not, simultaneously.

 _Dear CLARKE_ , it began, in the same loopy handwriting.

_I’m afraid I can’t answer any of these questions. I do know I exist parallel to you, but not in the same reality, if that makes sense. It would be easier to explain this if we could talk, person to person, but I don’t know how that would be possible. I do believe we catch glimpses of each other, every now and then, if I’m not wrong._

_There is one question I can answer – I am a guy. Whatever else I am is quite difficult to grasp and even more difficult to put into words._

_Do your friends have any suggestions on how I could make myself more visible to you, or figure out a way to see you?_

_Otherwise, I am really happy we have established this is a good communication method, for starters. It has been a lonely time for me._

_— BELLAMY_

Clarke read this out to Murphy. He frowned and took some notes, crossed out others. He was more invested in this that she thought he’d be, but then again, living locked up with Miller must’ve not been the most interesting thing.

‘He talks like he’s fifty,’ he said.

‘I hope not. That’d be really weird.’

‘Yeah,’ Murphy agreed. ‘Add Raven to the call. I want to hear what the psychics have to say.’

Clarke listened, snickering a little at Murphy calling them psychics. Seeing as how all three of them had been getting involved in the spiritual side of the situation, it wouldn’t be difficult to see them as psychics.

God, the quarantine was doing all their heads in.

At first, Raven was offended that she wasn’t the one Clarke contacted first, but then it all started to make sense to her, so she wasn’t offended anymore. Niylah and Murphy squabbled over the spiritual and the rational for a bit, until Luna told them all to shut up and asked Clarke a few questions.

The takeaway of the discussion was that Clarke should accept the fact that there’s a ghost in her apartment.

‘It’s definitely going to help you communicate with him,’ Luna told her. ‘It makes sense. If you open up to someone, they’re more likely to open up to you.’

‘So what you’re saying is,’ Clarke paused to get her thoughts together, ‘that both he and I need to be more open about sharing the same space on the same spiritual realm or whatever?’

‘Wavelength,’ interjected Murphy. ‘The energy the girls are talking about – it’s just vibrations, frequencies, whatever you want to call it. There’s been a lot of research about that, actually.’

‘Makes sense,’ Raven said.

‘What about meditation?’ Niylah asked. ‘You should definitely keep communicating through writing, but if you really want to be able to see him or whatever, then both of you need to open up your mind to the other. Hence, meditation.’

The conversation ended with Niylah sending her more tea recipes. Clarke was going to need to do some herb shopping soon, that was certain. Raven and Murphy agreed on a method that could technically increase the current communication between Clarke and Bellamy. Luna just offered more support.

The night ended with Clarke in her bed, hand hurting after writing more than she usually did. She filled out the journal, same as for the past few days, noticing that there had been a significant increase in the number of odd things she wrote down. The group’s explanation for that was simply the fact that Clarke was more open to connecting with the ghost; more observant, too.

The morning began with another letter from Bellamy.

From then onwards, they began corresponding several times a day – about once an hour. Clarke would always leave her letters on the armchair-couch, alongside the pen she’d found, and that’s where she would usually put everything that she didn’t think belonged to her. Murphy suggested this could increase Bellamy’s connection to the physical world.

Most importantly, at some point, Clarke realised none of this even surprised her anymore. Whenever Niylah would send suggestions for increasing Clarke’s connection to the spiritual world, she would read it while munching on an apple and some tea on the side. Murphy’s continuous research on possible origins of Bellamy yielded no results, but the whole group got in on it, and finding cool ghost stories or trivia about Polis became everyone’s favourite pastime.

Clarke found herself in the world of psychics, spirits, and somehow this life began to feel like the new normal.

Clarke had a ghost in her apartment. His name was Bellamy, he was roughly her age, and he was quite fun to talk to, despite writing like a fifty-year-old.

Things around her apartment moved, quite often. Bellamy couldn’t offer any explanation as to why some things he would do, had an echo in Clarke’s, physical world, and why others didn’t. There was no pattern to it. He said he took an apple out of the fridge and cut it up, but for Clarke, the apple remained in the fridge yet there was a knife on the counter.

Still, one week into knowing she was stuck in quarantine with a real-life version of Casper, the friendly ghost, Clarke hadn’t seen him.

He asked her about it, once.

_It’s glimpses_ , she wrote to him. _There are times when I think I see something moving out of the corner of my eye, but when I look, there’s nothing. None of the things that you move or turn on/off or whatever, none of that happens while I’m present. Or it happens behind my back. I just never see anything actually moving._

Raven, who took it upon herself to figure out the mechanics of the world—Murphy was the detective, the one looking up facts, and Niylah was the spiritual guide—she told Clarke this might be a case of quantum physics – two realities merging into one. If things from his world are an echo in the physical one, then the ripples are the knife and the apple. Echo, like these things, doesn’t come immediately.

Essentially, Clarke was seeing what Bellamy did only _after_ he had done it. Their present wasn’t happening at the same time.

Raven’s theory was that this wasn’t a status quo. Clarke noticed more things happening more often, possibly suggesting their realities had aligned closer than ever before.

Clarke…didn’t really understand what all that meant. She was just having fun getting to know her ghost.

At the end of the second week of quarantine, right after she finished her routinely facetime call with Mystery Inc., Clarke found a letter that certainly wasn’t one she ripped out of the journal. It was a countertop, next to a sandwich she certainly hadn’t prepared.

_Dear CLARKE,_

_I wanted to do an experiment. You said your friends said intentions matter, so I made a sandwich with the intention of you eating it. I also took a page out of that journal. There’s a small drawing on the back, which I assume is yours._

_Anyway, if I’m right, then there’s a sandwich. It’s not my best work and I don’t know how you like your sandwiches, but hopefully it doesn’t taste too bad. I used ingredients from the fridge, as I always do when I get hungry._

_Let me know, if you can, how it tasted (and your sandwich preferences). If I’m right, then we might be closer to speaking to each other in four eyes._

_— BELLAMY_

_P.S. I think I heard your voice today. I’m not sure._

Shock and joy washed over her at once. Clarke took a photo of the sandwich to send to the group later, and she would’ve facetimed them immediately, only it didn’t feel like the right thing to do. It felt private – intimate, almost. Just for her, and the maker of the sandwich.

Clarke bit into it.

It was fucking delicious.

She wrote back, rating it 9/10 ( _more ham, less mayonnaise_ ) and left the letter where she found it. Her fingers hovered over the FACETIME button on the group chat, but she stopped herself.

Her heart skipped a beat. She felt a breeze on her cheek, despite the fact no window was open.

‘Bellamy?’

Clarke walked over to the armchair-couch, picking up the letter she’d left there earlier. It was unchanged, but it felt different. It felt a little softer between the fingers, a little less rigid; a different kind of energy. Less… _real_.

She looked around. The breeze was still here, only she couldn’t tell where she felt it.

‘Bellamy?’ she called again. ‘Can you hear me?’

The apartment was eerily silent. Clarke guessed that’s what usually happens when you’re expecting to hear something. Still, she didn’t feel alone – the same presence she’d been feeling for the past few days reigned on, if a little bit _more_ than before.

Nothing came. She called his name, over and over again, and it was her and the breeze. She walked through every door in the place, looking for any sign, anything that was different from the way things were minutes before, only to find nothing.

Nothing, over and over again.

It was a false hope, she realised, and she could feel the disappointment in the slump of her shoulder. Another bittersweet realisation followed – she didn’t even know how badly she wanted to establish firmer contact until it was snatched from her grasp.

Clarke sat down, on the couch, and looked at the armchair-couch. It was as empty as ever, but now, it hurt a little more.

She sighed. Her fingers found themselves on the armrests, playing with stray burgundy knots. ‘For a moment, I thought I’d get to see you tonight, Bellamy. It felt like it. I thought I felt you walking past.’

The breeze was still there; the unfathomable, unexplainable breeze, but Clarke knew it was a false lead that only gave her false hope.

She continued fiddling with the armrest. ‘I thought it would be cool to finally talk to you. It gets a little lonely here, sometimes. Most of my friends are locked up with other people, and it’s only me and Lincoln who are alone, and Lincoln pretty much lives at the hospital anyway.’

Another breeze wooshes past her, but she stopped paying attention to it. Her attention was on that stubborn thread that wouldn’t go out or inside the armrest.

Her chest heaved with an emotion she didn’t even know she harboured in it. ‘I’m lonely. It’s hard, being cut off from everybody I love. There’s you, but you’re not even really there, and I feel like it would be nicer to have someone to talk to. Even if you’re a ghost. I don’t know. Do you get lonely? Do ghosts get lonely?’

Clarke let herself wait a bit; listen. She could hear the breeze, whistling a little, coming from a place she couldn’t locate. Aside from that, and her own breathing, and her nails picking at the threat, it was silent.

She felt like a fool.

It wasn’t until she’d taken a shower, to cool herself, and decided to tell her friends about what happened only in the morning, that she realized something _had_ changed. Or _happened_ , more precisely.

She had just walked into her bedroom, skincare routine finished, pjs put on, her phone charging, when she noticed the notebooks on her desk looked a little different kind of messy than she remembered leaving them. The journal, the good old journal, was in the middle of it. At first, she recalled Bellamy saying he’d taken the paper out of it, so she thought it was that.

Then she opened it.

It was a diary entry, but not so much about the person’s day, their actions, but their thoughts and feelings. It was incredibly personal and intimate and vulnerable and honest, raw in a way Clarke had rarely seen someone open up. It felt as if she was reading someone’s soul, put into words.

It made her heart weep.

_It gets lonely_ , it read, in handwriting she could easily recognise at this point. _Every day feels the same, and nothing brings out the satisfaction I feel it should. Voices are always there, but I can never put together where they come from. Everywhere and nowhere, at once, outside me and inside me._

_I don’t know how long it has been like this. I don’t know how much time has passed. Some days feel longer, some shorter, and I find myself unable to tell whether it’s a factual thing or simply my faulty, flawed perception of time._

_Do I exist?_

_Sometimes I think the answer is no. Sometimes I don’t think at all._

It went on like this, describing a heaviness of immense loss of one’s self; it was philosophical, questioning Bellamy’s existence beyond just the meaning of it. It tugged at Clarke’s heart, at her chest, at her lungs, stealing breath from her as she flipped through the pages.

There were hundreds of them. Not a single one was dated.

Clarke kept flipping through, skimming through some pages, ignoring others. It felt unreal – she had just written into this journal less than an hour ago, yet none of her writing was there. None of her sketches, nothing. It was as if it had never been in her possession.

When she came to the last page with writing on it, she halted to a stop.

It was different. It wasn’t philosophical, not as much, and the ink left a smudged print on her fingertips as she ran them over her name.

_I made a sandwich for CLARKE. I have been trying to think, to come up with a way to communicate with her, and I might have figured it out. Her psychic friends say intention matters, and how open-minded we are towards specific things, so I made a sandwich with an intention for her to have it. Not for myself – not for my version of the reality – but for her._

_I felt something when I was making that sandwich. It was a memory, or what I would imagine one to feel like, but I couldn’t reach it. It was stuck behind a veil in my mind, one that I can never cross. I’d never made a sandwich for myself, yet I knew what to do. My hands knew. As if I’ve done it before._

_Part of me thinks that becoming closer with CLARKE is helping me relearn who—what—I am. Perhaps my communication with her is the key. Perhaps my existence will be less aimless, then._

_Another thing has happened today: I heard her voice._

_She pronounces my name as if it were a flower. I’m not sure how it’s supposed to be pronounced, but everything about the way she does it seems right._

_I heard her talking to me, too. I couldn’t see her, or really understand where her voice was coming from, so I walked all over the apartment, to no avail. It was frustrating and almost painful inside my chest; I felt so close to her, as if she were within my reach, yet snatched from it at the very last minute._

_She couldn’t hear me, I think. I called her name, over and over; nothing._

_Still, I have to remind myself, even the fact that I heard her, is an improvement. It felt good to hear her voice – it was as if she finally became real, and not just a person whose letters I receive. It felt like something had awoken within me._

_I have not felt hope in a long time, but maybe this is the right moment for it. CLARKE, whoever she is outside the letters she sends me, gives me hope. That I won’t be so lonely. That I won’t be alone, anymore._

_Hearing her talk to me eases my nerves, washes me over with serenity. I could listen to her forever – it makes me feel…Well, I guess it makes me feel alive._

The entry ended there, and the ink and the last dot had not even dried yet.

Clarke put the journal away and sat on her bed, staring into space. Her eyes were wide open – was she hoping to catch a glimpse of something? The knowledge that Bellamy is as eager to talk to her as she is, it changed something. It shouldn’t have, but it did.

_Hope_ , Clarke realised. She, too, had hope for him.

She closed her eyes.

‘Bellamy,’ she said, then cleared her throat. She’d said it at a normal loudness, the normal way she’d talk to any of her friends – and knew it was wrong in an instant.

Bellamy was not just one of her friends. He’d heard her when she opened up to him, verbally, when she allowed herself to be vulnerable. When her voice had gone low, heavy with emotion, and when it was raw honesty. Just like his journal entries had been.

She kept her eyes closed, and let her guard fall.

‘Bellamy, I read your journal entries. Some of them. Not many, but I read the last one, and I know you heard me. I hope you can hear me now, too, even if I can’t hear you. I want you to know that I am sorry for reading that without your permission, but I also want you to know that you’re not alone. I’m here. As much as I am – I’m not really sure how much that is.’

Clarke laughed to herself, a little bit, at the absurdity of her statement. At the absurdity of what she was doing right now, hands running through her hair as she spoke to a ghost, who could only _maybe_ hear her.

She smiled. ‘I want to talk to you. I want to learn what life is like for you. I want to keep you company, because I am lonely, too, Bellamy. And I’m hoping—’ she pauses, trying to find the best way to say what she means. ‘I’m hoping that this means we are getting closer to finally talking to each other.’

Somewhere in the living room, Clarke could hear a breeze. This time, she wondered if that was him walking around the place. Maybe. Her heart beat fast against her ribcage.

‘I am going to sleep now, but hopefully tomorrow will be a day we get even closer to that.’ She opened her eyes and, in a fleeting moment, she thought she saw someone through the doorframe. But it was nothing. ‘Goodnight, Bellamy.’

In the morning, she found another note: Bellamy’s reply to what she said the night before. He said he didn’t mind her snooping through his notes – in fact, he was delighted that she even found his version of the journal. He proposed the idea that the journal was the connection between their realities, for whatever reason.

As far as Clarke could tell, it checked out.

A group facetime call let her know that she was doing the right thing. Everyone was excited about the fact that she found the journal, even if she didn’t tell them about any entry before the last one. They encouraged her to talk to Bellamy more often, push the boundaries.

So she did. At first, it didn’t work, but Clarke slipped into voicing her thoughts with more ease than she would’ve thought, wondering if he could hear them. She’d tell him about what she was going to cook, give him a tutorial on how to make Niylah’s tea recipes, or make comments when watching Netflix.

They experimented, with a lot of things. Sometimes she’d come out of the shower to a cup of black tea, chamomille, and mugwort – for enhancing intuition. Sometimes she’d go over the pieces of vinyl she’d forgotten she owned, and pick the one that speaks to her.

Murphy began to call her a psychic. She couldn’t argue, not quite.

It was nice. It felt like a game, and she finally wasn’t the only player. Bellamy’s presence grew and she caught more and more glimpses, and sometimes there were sounds that almost resembled whispers. It was light touches on her hands, when she was in the kitchen, slicing up an onion and giving him a tutorial.

One time, he wrote down a lasagna recipe that he said came to him. It was, as far as they knew, the first memory that was more formed than the sandwich he’d made.

It was fucking delicious. Clarke left some on the counter for him, telling herself that it was for _Bellamy_ , and it was gone not even fifteen minutes later.

At some point, somehow, they became friends. Clarke would laugh when something would tickle her, or give him shit when he didn’t put down the toilet seat. She told him to help around the house, doing the dishes and cleaning up, and he did.

It had been almost three weeks into lockdown when the government prolonged it. Wells told the group, in confidence, that although the official statement is that they will review the decision in another three weeks, the lockdown was to be imposed until further notice. What that was going to do to their economy, they didn’t know, even though Jasper, a Business Management and Economics double major, said this is the equivalent to the end of the world.

Clarke went grocery shopping. She got some extra supplies, as things that Bellamy would do began to have more impact on her world – including all the food he consumed. So, essentially, Clarke did the shopping for two people (and then promptly decided to tell him he has to do every chore in return, for not paying). At some point during the week, she’d decided to ask Niylah for recommendations when it comes to _more_ than just herbal teas, so now she had a whole bunch of sage and that kind of stuff in the shopping bag.

_Meddling with the spiritual world can come at a cost for some people,_ she’d read on some online blog about psychic stuff. _It is of utmost importance to protect one’s self when delving deeper into it. Each person has a set abundance of energy that is used in their communication with spirits, or performing rituals. Loss of energy, whether voluntary or not, leaves the soul with weakened natural protection against the negative aspect of the spiritual world. People become more susceptible to this negative influence which, if persistent, can be fatal._ Below that, the author added a bunch of links leading to different cleansing rituals and ways to increase/protect one’s energy.

Clarke had also learned that rituals aren’t just chanting or charming or glaring at a crystal ball. It’s as simple as writing a letter, with the intention of someone reading it. Or making a sandwich. Really, it was no wonder she had been so tired lately.

(That just meant she stocked up on coffee.)

When Clarke arrived home, she arrived full of enthusiasm and hope because really, “meddling” with the spirit world was a lot more fun than she’d ever thought it would be. She was ready to tell Bellamy all of the things she’d learned, and hear his opinions on how it could help improve their communication.

One thing Clarke had learned about Bellamy in the past two weeks or so, was that he was incredibly intelligent. At first, when they began exchanging letters, she thought he was a little pompous, a little dramatic and showing off with his vocabulary. Now, it seemed obvious that Bellamy just had the writing style of an academic. He was quicker to grasp the concepts Raven, Murphy, and Niylah were throwing at them, even quicker to come up with ideas of his own. He had an understanding of people, too, as he’d manage to notice the slightest tinge of irritation or anxiety in Clarke’s voice and quickly jump to a way to help.

So, she could be nothing but excited when she arrived home, buzzing with ideas of her own.

It wasn’t until she walked through the hallway, through the living room, over the bar separating it from the kitchen/dining room, into the kitchen, over the table, that the bags fell out of her grasp. Something shattered.

Clarke gasped. Her heart skipped a beat. _Not the eggs, please!_

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her hands felt cold. Her heartbeat was echoing in every bone of her body. Her fingers shook as she raised them to her eyes, rubbing them, and opening them again.

Nothing had changed.

A man was still sitting in the armchair-couch, reading a book.

Clarke didn’t know what to do.

The weirdest part was – she _knew_ this was Bellamy.

Her eyes glazed over him, then at the kitchen, then back at him, then back at the kitchen, and that repeated for a solid five minutes. Clarke couldn’t figure out if he could see her or not, and her voice had followed the White Rabbit into a hole.

Every time she looked, he was still there. He hadn’t noticed her, as far as she could tell.

He looked nothing like she imagined.

Clarke noticed her dad’s old Frank Sinatra vinyl was playing. She also noticed there was a sandwich on the counter, alongside a little note ( _I‌ this could be my best one yet. — BELLAMY_ ). And there was some tea on the coffee table, and a glass of water, and some cookies she didn’t even know she had.

Bellamy flipped a page. She heard it. She could even hear him breathe, if she concentrated hard enough.

He looked nothing like she imagined.

‘Bellamy?’ The word was an earthquake over her lips, so different not that she could see the man it belonged to. She cleared her throat. ‘Hey, Bellamy?’

Nothing. Just like the first time she tried speaking to him.

‘Bellamy!’

He flipped a page. Changed the position of his legs, putting the left ankle on the right knee this time. The same reading glasses Clarke had found all those weeks ago were at the bridge of his nose.

She didn’t think he could hear her, or see her, and she wasn’t entirely sure why, but she was absolutely positive it was him, and that he wasn’t pretending.

_Trust your intuition_.

There was a ghost in her living room. He was casually reading a book and sipping his tea.

Clarke dialled Raven’s phone number.

‘What’s the emergency?’

‘Bellamy is sitting on the armchair-couch.’

Raven let out a string of words that were neither curses, nor not-curses, and she seemed to had fallen off of something, too. Clarke waited, politely, for her friend to come to herself, as she stared at the boy-man-guy- _whatever_ in front of her.

It was surreal. It was also very, _very_ intoxicating.

‘Right,’ Raven said, her voice a little shaky. Clarke was glad it wasn’t facetime. ‘What happened?’

So Clarke told her. Her eyes remained fixed upon the apparition on her armchair-couch, unaware of her presence.

With each moment that passed, with Raven musing all the ideas and possibilities on how all of a sudden she could see him, but he couldn’t see or hear her, when they all had thought it would be the opposite. Clarke tuned out, at some point, only holding the phone to her ear and letting Raven’s voice become background noise.

It was peaceful; Clarke realised this as relief washed over her. She hadn’t noticed it until this point, but his presence had been a slight push to her lungs, keeping them from breathing fully. It was the clouds on what was supposed to be a sunny day; it was dust after you had dusted the room.

None of it was here, now. She felt like she could breathe – she felt as if the room was brighter.

Clarke wondered if that meant this was more _right_ than what had been happening before, whatever that meant. It made sense in her gut, and that was all that mattered.

‘No,’ she said, when Raven asked her if she felt afraid. ‘It feels normal.’

‘Normal,’ Raven repated, as if making sure she’d heard correctly. ‘Having a ghost in your living room feels normal.’

‘Well, more normal than knowing I have a ghost in the apartment but not seeing him.’

‘I guess that makes sense. Kinda.’

‘Do you think he’d like to move on, now that I can see him? Like, heaven, or whatever?’

‘Where do nerds go?’ Raven asked, only half joking. ‘Probably hell.’

‘Raven!’

The girl on the other end of the line laughed. Some former tension had been lifted, and Clarke could only wish that Raven was here to experience it with her. She tried, then, to put her on facetime and show Bellamy to her, except the camera didn’t pick up on anything.

‘That’s a shame. Fuck corona.’

‘Yeah,’ Clarke sighed. ‘Do you think psychics are essential workers? Exorcists?’

‘Probably not. What’s he like?’

Clarke thought about the apparition. ‘Quite cute for a dead guy.’

She was just being honest. Looking at him, now, having calmed down a little bit, Clarke felt as if she could see him better. The sun shone directly onto the page he was reading, but on his black curls, too, that looked like they should’ve been trimmed years ago. It was an unruly mess and, with the glasses at the bridge of his nose threatening to slide down, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, he had the appearance of an academic. Before turning the page, every time, he’d push the glasses up with the back of his index finger. He was sporting just a simple dark top and a pair of jeans, grey socks underneath, and looked like he belonged here.

Clarke couldn’t see his face very clearly, but he had the aura of him that somehow matched both the boy in his mid-twenties and the person who sounded fifty in his letters.

She smiled, a little. This was a person Clarke could see herself becoming friends with.

‘No, you idiot!’ Raven’s voice brought her back to the present. ‘What I meant is: does he look like a poltergeist?’

‘What does a poltergeist look like?’

‘How the hell am I supposed to know!’

‘You’re the one asking the question!’ Clarke squinted. At first, she thought he had a fully solid form, but now she could tell that some of the sunlight particles fell on him in quite an odd way, as if _through_ him, a little bit. ‘He almost doesn’t even look like a ghost.’

‘What do you mean?’

So Clarke described what she could see.

Not once did Bellamy budge. He kept reading, unaware of anything happening around him, and Clarke found it quite odd. Odd, but not surprised – nothing could quite surprise her anymore.

Walking up to Bellamy, Clarke held the phone in her hand, back to a normal call as she couldn’t look at Raven anyway. The closer she got to him, the more could see feel his presence.

He felt like dust particles in a ray of sunshine.

She was thankful Raven couldn’t read her mind.

Clarke called his name a few more times but it didn’t change anything. There was a couch, just a little bigger than the one he was sitting on, and she pulled it so it would be directed towards him, just the coffee table separating them. Some of the sunshine got on Clarke’s boots, making the smudgy yellow look like gold.

Illusions of light were quite a fascinating thing, and Bellamy was one of them.

Now, up close, she could see how _not_ physical he was. The dust passed through his cheek, where the sun shone on it, in a way that made him seem like an ethereal painting. Where he was in the shade, it seemed convincing enough, except the edges of his sweater were too soft, too smudgy against the colours behind him.

It wasn’t easy to look at him; Clarke’s eyes began to hurt. She’d felt that before, when she would be doing those 3D challenges, where you stare at a 2D image and try to see the hidden 3D piece.

‘Clarke, don’t tell me Casper murdered you,’ Raven’s voice came from her lap.

‘I’m good.’

‘Mhm.’ Clarke could tell Raven heard the tremor in her voice. ‘What are you waiting for?’

Truth be told, Clarke didn’t know. It didn’t feel right – to do it like this. Whether it was the way Bellamy’s edges weren’t sharp enough to be real, or his skin looked a tad too pale, too paper-thin, too see-through, it wasn’t right.

It was too much. There was too much going on.

Clarke didn’t need to be a psychic to understand some things.

‘Hey, Raven, I’ll call you back in a bit.’

Before Raven got enough time to even get a word in, Clarke hung up on her. Her phone ended up on the coffee table, put on silent and off vibrate.

Bellamy kept on reading.

Clarke didn’t try talking to him. Instead, she made herself some tea, put away the groceries, and prepared a meal for the two of them. It was his own recipe, one that he said he thinks his mother might’ve taught him. (Clarke had written it down and sent it to Murphy – he was the one keeping all the facts about Bellamy’s life.)

It was relaxing. She listened to Frank Sinatra sing in the background, occasionally interrupted by a flipping of the page, or a sigh, or a short, court laughter; Bellamy was as much of a presence in the apartment as she was. It was quite fascinating.

About an hour after she had first lain her eyes on him, Clarke placed his portion of the meal on the coffee table. It was pasta with some meat, but prepared just in the way Bellamy said he liked it, for the first time. She didn’t have all the ingredients when they tried making it the first time, and now she made sure she did.

The sun had almost set by that point. Clarke watched Bellamy flip another page, almost at the end of the book.

She didn’t recognise the book. It wasn’t hers.

‘Bellamy,’ she said, softly. He brushed the tip of his nose, then pushed his glasses up. ‘ _Bellamy.’_

Somewhere, outside the apartment, a bird began to sing. Clarke wondered if it was just her he couldn’t hear, or the bird, either. She could hear the music he’d put on, though.

She sighed, leaning into the back of the couch. Things were too complicated. She was confused, he was confused, all of her friends were confused, and no one really understood what was going on. Whatever rules were keeping them apart, kept them in the dark, too.

Maybe they’d never know.

‘Bellamy!’

His eyes came off the page. They were dark, she saw when he glanced over her, and they fit him perfectly. He turned his head to look at the kitchen, with the tiniest of frowns appearing in the crease between his brows, and his lips pursed ever-so-slightly. A hand came up to his neck and he scratched the back of it, fixing his glasses again.

He was, as Clarke had told Raven, pretty cute for a dead guy.

‘Bellamy?’ she tried again.

His frown deepened, the finger on the page sliding off of it. He looked around, in circles, as if trying to figure something out – could it be that he heard her?

‘Bellamy, can you hear me?’

She walked over to him, sat on the couch next to him, as close as humanly possible without entering his personal space.

‘Bellamy, I’m right here.’ She felt her heart about to tear its way out of her ribcage. The room lacked air, or maybe Clarke’s brain lacked oxygen.

Either way, this was _big._

She thought if she kept saying his name, maybe it would be easier for him to hear her. ‘Bellamy, look at me!’

And he did, for a moment. Clarke’s face became one big, delighted smile, until she realised that he wasn’t looking _at_ her as much as looking _through_ her.

She let her body fall back, morphing into one entity with the couch. ‘You still can’t see me.’

Moments later, he went back to his book, as if nothing had happened. Clarke thought about bringing the plate into the kitchen to see if he’d notice it anytime soon, but it felt like too much. She was deflated.

Once again, she got _so_ close to something just to have it snatched right out of her hands.

She went to take a bath. The water was running, the bath bomb was waiting to be thrown in it, candles lit, and _The Book Thief_ placed neatly on the floor. It smelled peaceful and made the walls already covered in a sheer layer of mist, and Clarke felt like she was in a dire need of a nice, serene bath.

Her phone was in the kitchen. She went to grab it.

Bellamy was writing, furiously. The plate in front of him had only crumbs.

And Clarke just… she _just._ Stood there. Existing and not, all at once.

When he finished writing on what ended up being a very familiar piece of paper, he placed it on the coffee table, leaned back in the armchair-couch and began biting his nails. The ankle of his right left rested on his left knee, elbows on the armrests, and the hand free from his mouth was scratching at a spot behind his ear.

He didn’t do anything else. He just stared at the paper, as if waiting for it to combust.

Clarke reached over and took it.

_I think I heard your voice, but it was unlike what it usually sounds like. Usually, it comes from everywhere – as if you were on a speaker. Today, it sounded like you were somewhere in the apartment, moving. Your voice changed directions. But it was muffled, when usually it’s clear. I don’t understand._

_Thank you for the meal._

There was a moment of silence, as Bellamy continued staring at the same spot, as if she hadn’t moved the paper.

‘Bellamy.’ Her voice was quiet, but soft, loaded with more emotion than she thought it would be. ‘Bellamy, can you hear me?’

His hand stopped moving; he looked up, at nowhere in particular, eyebrows shooting all the way up into his curls. ‘Clarke?’

‘Oh my god, Bellamy, can you hear me?’

‘Yes – I can – I can hear you!’

For a moment, the world stopped spinning. Clarke stood in place, frozen, and even Bellamy leapt to his feet. He couldn’t see they were standing right across the table from each other; he couldn’t see Clarke shaking from excitement and disbelief.

_This is a ghost_ , she thought. _I’m excited to see a ghost._

Clarke before the quarantine would never have believed that not only was there an actual ghost in her apartment, and not only would she meet him, she’d even become friends with him.

‘Clarke?’ Bellamy’s lip quivered as he said her name. ‘You still here?’

‘Can you not see me? You’re looking straight at me.’

‘Are you in that ugly couch across from me?’

Clarke scoffed, and crossed her arms on her chest. ‘Rude! I picked that couch. And no, I’m standing in front of it.’

‘My apologies,’ Bellamy said, with the slightest hint of a smile in the corners of his lips. ‘I didn’t mean to offend your shit taste for interior design.’

‘I’ll evict you,’ Clarke replied.

Before she knew it, they were both laughing. It was odd, seeing him laugh, as the sun set softly behind his back. Clarke didn’t know what talking to a ghost would be like, but she didn’t think it would be like talking to an old friend. It was almost as if they had known each other, once, and were meeting up for the first time in years – that was how it felt to give Bellamy the Ghost an actual _face._

He still couldn’t see her, though, even with dimples in his cheeks as he smiled at her.

_What if he doesn’t like what he sees?_

Clarke knew she shouldn’t care how he’d feel about her appearance, and that it shouldn’t matter, at all, but she did, and it mattered. It was an odd thought. Thankfully, she didn’t look like her usual hot mess, as she washed her hair in the morning, for going to the grocery store.

Bellamy was still smiling at her. She wondered what he was thinking.

‘Do you know why you can see me now?’

_There’s my answer._ Clarke shook her head, then remembered he couldn’t see it. ‘No. I haven’t really done anything different.’

‘Hm.’ Bellamy frowned, and it looked different to his concentration-face; there was a scar on his upper lip, she could tell now, his lips pursed and brows furrowed as he stared through her. ‘Were you expecting me to be here?’

‘No. Wait, what do you mean, exactly?’

He sat back on the armchair-couch, leaning into the back of it. One of his arms lay on the armrest, and the other one scratched the five o’clock shadow on his chin. ‘You knew I’d be here, right?’

‘In the apartment?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, obviously.’ Clarke leaned against the wall, too restless to sit. ‘You’re always here.’

‘But this was the first time you were coming back _knowing_ that I’d really be here.’

‘Huh. How come you can’t see me, then?’

‘Good point,’ Bellamy said. He turned his head to the window, exposing his jawline. It was an interesting jawline. ‘Maybe it’s intention. That would make sense.’

‘You’re saying that because I expected you to be here, I can see you, and because you weren’t aware of me even leaving, you can’t?’

Bellamy’s face was puzzled for a second, until Clarke saw understanding wash over it. ‘Something like that.’

‘Okay, well, I’m going to take a nice, long bath, so you have about an hour to get enough intention to see me, too,’ Clarke stated. ‘It’s not fair that you can’t see me. Also, if you walk into my bathroom, I _will_ be able to tell, and Niylah did give me some tips on protecting myself if you get weird.’

Instead of getting annoyed, like she feared he would, Bellamy laughed. The dimples popped up again and he flashed his teeth, throwing his head back a little bit, his shoulders jumping up and down. ‘Please don’t hurt me.’

Clarke pointed at him. ‘Watch it.’

‘Pinky promise, Princess.’

‘Don’t call me princess.’ She was glad he couldn’t see the redness in her cheeks. ‘I’m off now, I will announce my presence outside of the kitchen. Make me some tea and a sandwich in a little less than an hour, please.’

‘Oh, really?’ Bellamy’s voice was teasing, but the smile remained.

Clarke wondered if, much like she kept forgetting he can’t see her, he kept forgetting she _could_ see him. The high possibility made her feel a little odd. It was as if this Bellamy was too private for her to see.

She tossed the thought away. ‘I made you the pasta.’

‘Fair point.’ His smile softened. ‘Alright then, Princess.’

‘Dick.’

He grinned and waved his hand dismissively. It was a simple gesture, nonchalant, but it made Clarke feel a little odd. She bid her goodbye and locked the bathroom, just in case, even though she didn’t know if he could walk through walls. It was just another question on her list.

The next hour was a roller-coaster. Realistically, Clarke knew she should contact her friends, update Raven on the whole situation – especially seeing as she missed a number of calls and texts while her phone was on silent. It would’ve been the right thing to do. It was just that she didn’t feel like telling them just yet.

It was silly. Bellamy stopped being a joke, or a thing, and became a human being, and Clarke felt a little too weird about that to share it with her friends.

Then she started thinking about seeing him for the first time, and hearing his voice for the first time, and her cheeks set on fire. He felt _too_ real _._ It was as if she hadn’t truly believed what was happening until today.

Plus, she realised she was attracted to him. Objectively speaking, Bellamy was one handsome piece of work, and his voice was deep enough to hit just the right spots in her heart. Subjectively, he was also funny and someone she had grown fond of through exchanging letters.

He wasn’t supposed to be good looking and funny and interesting and kind and caring and hot and—

Clarke splashed water over her face. She needed to stop thinking like this.

Bellamy was _dead_.

Or a ghost, at something, but definitely not the same as Clarke.

She climbed out of the bath exactly an hour after getting into it, smelling like vanilla and raspberries. She moisturised, did her skincare routine, and pulled the hair claw off her head, letting the blonde strands fall freely over her bare shoulders. She looked flushed, enough to get her questioning whether it was _just_ the bath causing it.

By the time she actually walked into the kitchen, she put on a tank top and a pair of sweats, but kept her hair down, wavy from the moisture. She tried to stop thinking about his reaction to seeing her.

It was all too surreal.

There was music playing, from the TV this time, Clarke’s Spotify playing some old rock. It sounded a little off, as if there was something overlapping with the sound, although she couldn’t figure out what. The plate was taken off the coffee table and Clarke looked to the left, to the kitchen area.

Bellamy was just in sweatpants.

Shirtless.

Clarke made sure she didn’t make a sound.

From the way he was moving about the kitchen, his back turned to her, she could tell he was making food. His feet were shuffling about and his hips swaying in the rhythm of an Eric Clapton song. The muscles on his back were impressive enough to draw a shaky breath out of Clarke, who just _watched_. He was the lean type of muscular, the one that comes from genetics and daily life as opposed to getting jacked at the gym, and his hair was tousled in a way that Clarke has seen Murphy’s get after doing a few exercises at home.

He also looked like he belonged there, in this apartment, in this kitchen, in this moment, just the way Clarke was seeing him.

_Fuck_ , Clarke thought. _Oh, fuck._

She pushed herself to walk right up to where the bar separated the living room from the kitchen area, quietly. It made her realise what was odd about the music – Bellamy was singing along to it.

Clarke shivered.

‘I’m back,’ she said.

Bellamy turned around, lips still moving to the words of the song, until they weren’t.

Until he laid his eyes on her.

He whispered her name as if it was a prayer to a God he suddenly believed in.

‘Hi,’ she said.

Clarke didn’t know if time stopped, or neither of them moved for a few long seconds. She watched Bellamy’s eyes take her in, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. His face was unreadable, mouth slightly agape, breath quiet.

Eric Clapton sang _Layla_ in the background.

‘Hey,’ Bellamy said, quietly. His eyes found hers again.

Clarke felt small; unprepared. Maybe she should’ve worn something less revealing. Maybe her face was still flushed – no, it definitely was. Maybe he was expecting her to look different, maybe he didn’t like blondes, maybe he expected her to be skinnier—Clarke felt the need to wrap her hands around her, but she fought it.

‘I thought you’d be taller.’ He smiled, warmly, face softening from the initial shock. ‘You’re less intimidating now that I can see you.’

‘Unacceptable.’

‘Now I know I’m not getting evicted.’

‘You still might.’

Bellamy raised his hand, a plate with a sandwich on it. ‘Would this help?’

‘Thanks, Bellamy.’

He smiled at her, and it was a smile that Clarke felt to her toes. His eyes never left her, and even when he turned around to fetch two mugs with tea, he kept glancing over as if he couldn’t get enough of her.

She was definitely flushed.

Clarke went to sit down on the couch, next to the armchair-couch, afraid of where her thoughts had been going. ‘Do you want to watch something?’

‘Hell yeah.’

Bellamy walked over and didn’t sit in the armchair-couch, as she thought he would, but next to her. The couch wasn’t too big so there wasn’t even a whole foot between them, and Clarke was all too aware of his bare chest, and the muscle on it that was as toned as it was on his back.

She started eating her sandwich.

They watched _1917_ , and Bellamy surprised her with educated commentary on the British WWI military practices. They were both a little surprised, in fact, but his face melted into a big grin when they realised his theory that spending time with Clarke was helping him remember things about his life.

They ended up watching another movie Clarke couldn’t pay attention to; her mind was trying to figure out what was going to happen once they were ready to go to sleep. She didn’t even know where he slept. She didn’t know if he had different clothes—he must’ve, as he wasn’t wearing this when she’d seen him hours ago—or if he needed to shower and everything just like she did.

What did ghosts even do when they were communicating with people living in their haunted apartment?

The movie finished, and they let the credits roll.

Clarke turned to Bellamy.

‘Do you remember looking after me? The blankets, the heating, that kind of stuff?’

Bellamy frowned at the thought. Clarke was still not used to _seeing_ his face. ‘Not really. It wasn’t like – I didn’t do these things to help you specifically. I didn’t know I was helping you. It was like...like a feeling inside me, making me think I should do specific things, sometimes, or I’d get in random moods. I’d put a blanket over the couch cause it felt like it belonged there, sometimes. I’d turn on Netflix and watch what I felt like I was supposed to watch. The heating was because I’d get annoyed at it dropping.’

‘So it’s like…’ Clarke paused, struggling to come up with a proper way to word her thoughts. ‘It’s like we lived in the same space, but not really.’

‘That shouldn’t make sense.’ Bellamy says, and they both know he means that it does.

‘Nothing makes sense.’

Through more conversation, they come to the realisation that the apartment digested Clarke’s moods, and projected them onto Bellamy, using him to make her feel a little bit better. They couldn’t really figure out why, but it was also one of those things that both did and didn’t make sense. They also figured out that they slept in the same bed, each on their own side, and Bellamy said he’d sleep on the couch instead.

Some part of Clarke was disappointed, but she hushed it. Instead, they discussed some more things, but all the discovered was that Bellamy was living his life as much as Clarke was, except only some of it had an echo in her life.

Now, they assumed, things were different.

Clarke went to bed and Bellamy stayed on the sofa and when she woke up in the morning, he’d made her breakfast and was watching the History channel with the same tea she’d always make for increasing her intuition.

When Clarke tried showing him to her friends, they still couldn’t see him, or hear him. It was weird, with her having to repeat any answer he had to their questions, which wasn’t a lot in the first place. Mostly, he had just about as much clue about what was happening with him as they did.

Before she realised, a week had passed.

Their days had a routine to them. He would wake up a little earlier than her and have breakfast, then make breakfast for her and tea for them both, for once she had showered. They would watch the History channel together, chat, he would help out with her online classes, and then hang out in the kitchen as she would make lunch. After that, they would play drinking games, which helped with his memory, and they made it a game to write down as many facts about him as they could get. There would be an evening phone call with her friends, and he participated as much as he could. Dinner would be made by either of them, depending on the day, or both at once. Every night was a movie night, with popcorn and lollipops, after which Bellamy would stay on the couch and Clarke went to the bedroom.

Clarke also picked up on some of his habits. He was the type that sang while doing chores, meaning that whenever he was doing pretty much anything, there was music. She liked to hear him sing. He liked to watch her paint, and confuse the kids with moving objects behind her just little enough to make it odd, but not apparent. He propped up his feet on the coffee table and he was nowhere near as proper as his writing style made him seem, and he loved picking up on historical inaccuracies in whatever they watched. He preferred coffee to tea and was grumpy before he had it, and he liked an extensive amount of mayonnaise in his sandwiches. He never took the teabag out of the cup, and he swirled the spoon until he’d emptied the cup.

He was also extremely kind and helpful and understanding, and far more intelligent than Clarke had even anticipated. He liked Murphy and Raven, was a little indifferent to Luna and Niylah, and thought Monty and Jasper were hilarious.

It was a quiet Monday morning, and Clarke woke up before him.

The kitchen was empty and cleaned spotless, the way Bellamy liked to do it. She made herself coffee; somehow, it didn’t feel like she needed tea anymore. He was here and imagining her apartment without him in it was impossible enough to make her believe things wouldn’t go back to the pre-quarantine state if she stopped drinking psychic tea.

With her back leaning against the kitchen counter, Clarke looked at the couch, where Bellamy was asleep under the biggest blanket they could find.

He looked peaceful.

There were times when Clarke wondered if there is a reason why she was the only one who could see him, or why he felt inclined to do things to help her before he even realised she was here. At some point, she realised that the reason why she didn’t immediately react upon seeing him for the first time was because every time she’d see him, it’d feel the same – as if her eyes recognised him.

Maybe they were connected in a way neither of them could explain. Niylah said that could be an option. Murphy said it’s bullshit.

Clarke just wanted to know why her heart was fluttering now, as she watched the sun rays move their way across the back of the couch, mere minutes away from landing on his eyes and waking him up. His hair was a mess and one of his hands under his head, too long to not be hanging off the side of the couch. His lips were parted, slightly, and he breathed loudly enough for Clarke to hear it.

It was a calming sound, the beat of it the same as the one of her heart.

She felt the need to look away, to stop being privy to this sight, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him. The way the tan skin of his cheekbones glistened in the sun – it wasn’t like this when she had first seen him. She couldn’t see dust particles through it anymore, or tell that there was something really off about it. Even the lines around him looked less smudgy.

Clarke wondered if he was becoming more real. Then she turned around and made him coffee, too, because he began stirring, on the verge of waking up.

She tried to ignore the happiness at the realisation, and melted into his arms when he hugged her upon finding out that he looks a little less like a ghost than before.

More than anything, at Bellamy’s side was where she felt like she _belonged_. It was as easy as breathing, and their bodies seemed to understand one another in a way Clarke had never felt before. Light, accidental touches of knuckles in passing by turned into Bellamy’s hand on her lower back as he walks around her while they’re cooking dinner; sitting one foot apart turned into sitting so close their legs are touching, closer and closer, until he had an arm around her shoulders and her head was resting against his. It was nothing more than that until Clarke began to feel lonely and distanced from her friends after a long phone call and Bellamy stayed in her bed until she fell asleep, and in the morning she woke curled up to him, and it felt like he’d been here since the beginning of time.

Murphy told her she needed to get herself in check.

All Clarke did was let herself not be so lonely anymore, and relax into Bellamy’s touch as if it were the thing holding her afloat when the world is crumbling to pieces.

By the end of the second week, Clarke couldn’t imagine her life without Bellamy in it.

‘Do you think I’ll still be able to see you when the world goes back to normal?’ she asked one morning as they watched a show on WWII, her legs in his lap, his fingers trailing over them absentmindedly.

He didn’t look away from the TV. ‘The world is not going to get back to normal anytime soon.’

‘Eventually,’ Clarke said, ‘it will.’

Bellamy turned his head at looked at her with longing in his eyes.

Clarke had gotten good at reading him.

‘I hope you will,’ he said, quietly, as if afraid of his voice betraying him. ‘I don’t want to go back to being lonely.’

‘Me neither.’

They looked at each other for a few long moments, and Clarke knew they were both trying to memorise the other’s face. What happens if they can’t see each other anymore?

She was certain the longing in his eyes was in hers, too. He took her hand and held it, without a word, a soft smile on his lips.

It was a beautiful day, and Bellamy’s edges weren’t smudged anymore, and the sun rays stayed behind him, not going through him even the slightest.

He was every bit as real as Clarke herself.

‘Do you think that one day, you’re going to remember who you are? What happened to you?’

‘Maybe.’ His thumb drew circles over her open palm. She could never get enough of the his warmth. ‘It would be nice to know who I am.’

‘Whoever you are, I can’t imagine people not missing you. I know I would.’

‘Obviously.’ He grins, as if she made a joke.

Clarke stops his hand from moving on hers, taking it instead. ‘I’m serious. If there’s a time when you won’t be around anymore, I will miss you from the bottom of my heart.’

‘Do you think that’s going to happen?’

‘I don’t know,’ Clarke said, and it was the truth. She wasn’t going to say anything else, but she blurted out, ‘I want you to come outside with me tomorrow.’

‘We don’t know—’

‘We won’t, if we don’t try.’

Bellamy was quiet for a second, looking as if he was weighing his options, but his face gave in when he let out a sigh. ‘Okay.’

Clarke’s heart beamed, but worry hushed it.

The next morning, when Clarke was supposed to go do the weekly grocery shop, Bellamy was wearing jeans, a blue tee and a grey hoodie. They’d realised the closet somehow stored both of their clothing, depending on who went to look for it, and they didn’t complain.

Now, Clarke was trying to keep herself busy thinking about these kind of little wonders Bellamy brought into her life. The other option was too scary to think about, but looking at Bellamy’s pale face, she couldn’t help it.

Clarke took his hand. It was warmer each day.

For as long as he stayed in the apartment, Bellamy couldn’t recall if he ever tried stepping out of it. He never had the urge, not until Clarke brought it up as an option and he finally agreed. There was a chance that he’d never done it because he _couldn’t_ , because it could _kill_ him, and this was the risk they were taking today.

If Clarke was right, he’d be able to exist outside of the apartment. If she wasn’t…

Anything could happen. It was one of those days.

‘Ready?’

Bellamy didn’t say anything. His fingers gripped hers and he pulled the door open, and stepped over the threshold.

When he turned around and looked at Clarke, sharply, as if checking to see if she’s still there, she watched his face go from terror to bliss so strong that it filled her heart, too.

She leapt into his arms. He took a moment before he hugged her back, and when he did, he nearly crushed her.

He smelled like home. _Her_ home.

‘I knew it,’ she said.

He kissed the top of her head. Clarke clung onto him as if her life depended on it.

When they walked out of the building, their fingers were interlaced and bodies as close together as possible without bumping into each other. It was a warm and sunny day and Clarke found herself thinking it was a shame she hadn’t brought him outside before – he belonged here, in nature, just as much as he did in that armchair-couch with a book in his lap, and shirtless in the kitchen with dinner that smelled like heaven.

She squeezed his fingers, lightly, just to make sure they’re still there.

It was just a stroll, but Clarke hadn’t been happier in months.

Bellamy leaned closer to her, lowering his lips to her ears. ‘I think people are looking at me.’

Clarke shivered, because they were, and it was in a way they’d be looking at anyone holding hands when everyone is being asked to keep six feet apart. It was judgemental and irritated, but it wasn’t the way they’d look at a ghost.

They walked up to the store and Clarke let go of his hand, just so it wouldn’t be weird. There was a security guy who eyed her, up and down, but let her through.

‘Only one per household,’ she heard him say.

Clarke turned around. The guy had stepped in between her and Bellamy, who looked puzzled.

She beamed at him. ‘It’s okay. I’ll be quick.’

She was quick, and when she came out of the shop, she handed him some of the shopping bags, and he took them, and nobody looked at them the way they would if the groceries were floating in air, if they wouldn’t be able to see him.

Clarke turned to Bellamy and said, ‘They can see you.’

Bellamy beamed exactly the way she did when she realised that.

They dropped off the groceries and went back outside, despite knowing they shouldn’t, despite knowing they were safer at home. But this was allowed, and this was the cause for a celebration, and Clarke felt a little too alive to be locked up at home.

They never let go of each other’s hands, and Clarke found it difficult to imagine her life when she didn’t even know she could do that.

There was a park, about half an hour from Clarke’s apartment, secluded enough so that not many people would go there. It was quiet and empty, save for a few people scattered far away from the two of them to be worth any attention.

The grass was green, and soft, and Clarke thought she had never been happier to sit in a park. One of her hands was tangled in Bellamy’s hair as she watched him make a crown of daisies.

‘I think I used to make these for someone,’ he told her. ‘My sister.’

Clarke’s fingers reached for her phone, to text Murphy, but she didn’t. This was a moment for them, and them only.

Instead, she smiled. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘I guess.’ Bellamy laughed and that was beautiful, too, especially when he glanced at her, his eyes bright. ‘I have a feeling it’s not the best one I’ve made.’

‘Oh, shut up. It’s more than enough.’

He placed the crown on her head and Clarke let herself close her eyes for a moment, and pretended the circumstances were different.

When she opened her eyes, he was looking at her, shamelessly.

‘You’re no less real than I am,’ she said.

His hand reached into his hair, found hers, and took it out, before gently placing it on his cheek. He didn’t look away from her eyes, not for a moment, not for a heartbeat.

‘We’re going to find a way for you to go back to who you were before.’ _Before_ , even though neither of them knew what that truly meant. ‘No matter what it takes.’

Bellamy leaned his cheek against her hand, and she ran her thumb over it. His skin was as soft as a human’s, as full of little bumps, as full of little hairs that he’d just shaved earlier that morning.

He was no less real than she was.

‘As much as I want to find out everything about myself and go out, and be as real as I feel…’ Bellamy paused, closed his eyes, and kissed the palm of her hand before lowering it in his lap. When he opened his eyes, Clarke found them unreadable again. ‘As much as I want that, I don’t want to lose you. I don’t think I could bear that.’

_Oh._

He didn’t say it, but Clarke felt it, and Clarke realised why the longing in his eyes was so familiar.

It was the same longing she felt.

When she leaned forward and kissed him, he was as real as the grass underneath them, the sky above them, and the trees shielding them from the sun. He was as real as the crown on her head and the groceries in her apartment and the journal that was theirs. He was as real as the sun and the earth and all her friends.

He was real and Clarke was in love with him.

And he was in love with her, too.

**Author's Note:**

> damn this was long. i hope you enjoyed it. i spent ten days straight working on this thing and at this point i am tired of it and can't proofread it, so it might've had typos or some weird stuff or plot holes or whatever but pls don't come @ me cause i'm _t i r e d_. i just wanted to finish it. i'll proofread some other day, when i'm not so tired. 
> 
> this may or may not get a sequel. we shall see. i do have an idea, but not sure if i'll write it, as this was waaaaay longer than i thought it would be without me making it even longer. 
> 
> if you want to request a fic or contact me, just send me an ask on tumblr ([bellarkesgodson](https://bellarkesgodson.tumblr.com/)).
> 
> p.s. shoutout to the ghost in my apartment. it's been two days since i heard him, i hope he's doing okay.


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